A fumble on the Farm Bill

The House moved quickly to override President Bush’s veto of the Farm Bill Wednesday — so quickly that lawmakers may have to do it again.

One hundred Republicans joined 216 Democrats on the 316-108 vote, which came just hours after the White House had returned the $307 billion, five-year measure.

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The action reflected growing tensions between Congress and the White House over budget priorities. And a second showdown could come Thursday in the Senate when Democrats will press for a major expansion of GI education benefits to help veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

But the new majority hurt its cause in the case of the Farm Bill. In the rush to act before the Memorial Day recess, the leadership ignored the full consequences of a clerical error in which the third of the bill’s 15 titles had been dropped from the text presented on parchment to the president for his signature or veto.

After consulting with parliamentarians, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said that the House had properly overridden Bush on those portions on the parchment — but that left Title III, which covers trade and important international nutrition programs, out in the cold.

To remedy the situation, the Maryland Democrat said Wednesday night that the “likely” solution to the parliamentary snafu will be for the Congress to send Bush a newly numbered bill with the full text of the one voted upon last week.

“We can pass a full bill again. I think that’s likely, or we can just do Title III,” Hoyer said. He had not yet consulted with Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) but signaled that passing the bill again was the cleanest route and one he hoped could be done quickly.

Toward this end, the House Rules Committee cleared the way Wednesday night for an agriculture related bill to be brought up for a quick vote, and Hoyer’s hope is that Congress waves the newly numbered but familiar bill through, Bush vetoes again, and the override votes resume.

Then again, little about the Farm Bill has gone smoothly. And one casualty already in the whole affair could be plans for passing the 2009 budget before the recess. Hoyer indicated that will now wait until lawmakers return in June; the rest of this week will be devoted to clearing up the Farm Bill confusion and debate on a defense authorization bill.

The day had begun with more confidence. Stepping out of character, the Senate’s mild-mannered Finance Committee chairman, Sen. Max Baucus, had even taunted Bush for having brought “a knife to a gunfight” in the Farm Bill veto battle, which the Montana Democrat dismissed as “a speed bump on the road” toward enacting the legislation.

The macho talk reflected growing disagreements between Congress and the White House five months before the November elections. The Democrats’ proposed budget resolution would add $21 billion to White House appropriations requests for the coming year. And education is a signature issue for the party, from public school reading programs to GI benefits.

More than one-third of the increased appropriations identified in the new budget resolution would go to education accounts. And GI college benefits are pivotal to Senate votes Thursday related to a larger spending package for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Jobless benefits and Gulf Coast aid are part of the same debate. But the expanded GI benefits—costing $52 billion over 10 years—have become a rallying cry for Democrats, who are pressing Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, to join in the effort because of his support of the war in Iraq.